I had been going here for 3 years, but the last time I went there will definitely stay the last.
Around 3-4 months ago, I left my car overnight to get an oil and transmission fluid change. They called me back the next day, saying I don't need a transmission fluid change now, trying to talk me out of it, saying Honda doesn't even recommend changing it until 120k miles (which, no, they recommend at 60k, and that's normal driving conditions, whereas my car is driven hard under extreme conditions, urging the tranny fluid change at a bit less than 60k miles, which is what the car was at), which what Honda recommends isn't the important thing anyway - he should have been telling me how the transmission fluid looked in age after they had checked it with the dipstick - that is what matters, and I was never given any info on that simple aspect. They say okay, and then when I go to pick up my car, I asked a passing question that got a very weird answer. I asked "how'd that transmission fluid look" and he replied "oh, you know, they all look the same".
..huh? No, it definitely doesn't look all the same. It's variations of clear fresh color all the way to extremely old/burnt.
I was dumb and passed off this answer as nothing to worry about, and took their word on the work done, because I'd been going here for 3 years with no issue.
A few weeks ago, I had to take my car in for a product recall to be replaced at the dealership. When they were done, they said all was well with the car, except a service light was out (not related), the brake fluid (not related) and transmission fluid needed changing (3-4 months after I had just had it changed???), and also that I should be very careful because the engine was overfilled by a quart and a half of oil (also done at Midas when I asked them to do the oil/tranny fluid changes).
And it's not like the dealership service rep who was going over my car with me was trying to upsell me more services I don't really need, because he didn't even offer to have them have these things fixed or to make an appointment for me to have it done later. He was just telling me what the service worker's required inspection found, and honestly, he was really trying to hurry me on my way at the end of the day.
I get that some oil change places will do fast, shoddy work and will sometimes overfill the engine. It's so easy to avoid, and is careless, but whatever, I get that it happens a lot (even at dealerships). I'm extremely angry at myself for not checking the oil level in all this time, so I've been driving with my engine overfilled by a sizable amount of oil for months now, but it's not like I'd never come back to this Midas for that mistake alone.
But the fact when I was told that the transmission fluid was dirty and could use replacing a few months after it was supposedly replaced brand new (and I've since dipsticked it myself, and it's not a few months fresh looking), that's what will never get me in this store again.
Most likely scenario, they got the car in in the morning, didn't have the readily available resources or time to deal with the transmission fluid change, so changed the oil, then called me and tried to talk me out of the tranny fluid change, and then when I still wanted them to do it, they just said "okay", but never even brought the car back in to the garage, but charged me for the work anyway.
Classic. read more